SideFX continues to expand its Houdini toolkit: SideFX Labs has a free procedural bridge-building asset for Houdini.

This new tool allows artists to generate procedural bridges with complete control over deck curvature, width, railing types, and support structures. Parameters can be adjusted non-destructively, enabling fast iterations directly within Houdini’s node-based environment — without the need for manual remodeling every time the art director changes their mind.

Designed to survive — and collapse — on cue, the procedural bridges are fully animatable. Users can simulate destruction, dynamic sagging, or scripted failures, leveraging Houdini’s physics systems without needing to rebuild or reweight meshes.

The tool is available immediately through SideFX Labs, which collects SideFX’s experimental and work-in-progress tools. Installation follows the standard Labs workflow via the Houdini package manager or manual GitHub download. As always with Labs assets, users are advised to verify project-specific stability before integrating the tool into production pipelines.

Procedural Freedom: Build, Animate, Destroy

According to SideFX, the bridge tool provides full procedural access:

• Adjust deck shape and width procedurally.
• Customize railing styles and supporting structures.
• Animate destruction sequences or dynamic deformations natively in Houdini.

The tool extends Houdini’s already formidable procedural modeling toolkit — fitting neatly into pipelines for environment building, games, VFX, or animated films where you want your characters’ journey to become… unexpectedly wet.

Available Now — Just Add Labs

The bridge builder is bundled inside the current SideFX Labs release at no extra cost. Given that Labs tools are experimental by nature, checking the asset’s behavior in your Houdini setup is strongly recommended before pressing it into full production duty. For more updates on free Houdini tools — including ruins and organic flesh modeling — see our related article on Project Grots: Houdini Tools for Ruins and Flesh. Because in Houdini, whether you’re building bridges or crumbling cathedrals, it’s all procedural — and it’s all gloriously unstable if you want it to be.

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The post SideFX Extends Houdini Labs: Free Procedural Bridge Tool Arrives first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Reallusion’s Blender Auto Setup plugin has received a new update, reinforcing its utility for Character Creator 4 (CC4) and iClone users working within Blender. The free tool simplifies the transfer of CC4 and iClone character assets into Blender, ensuring rigs, materials, and animations are accurately configured upon import. This enhancement addresses common bottlenecks in character animation workflows and real-time rendering pipelines.

Improved Rigging and Animation Workflows

The updated plugin introduces a refined rigging system that directly imports CC4 and iClone character rigs into Blender with minimal need for manual adjustments. Bone alignment and weight mapping have been fine-tuned, reducing inconsistencies that previously required manual correction. The result is a smoother process for animators, particularly those using Blender’s tools for character animation.

For motion capture and animation editing, the plugin now ensures imported rigs retain compatibility with Blender’s pose and animation features, cutting down on troubleshooting time during production.

Shader Setup Upgrades

One standout improvement is the automatic setup of Blender-compatible shaders. The plugin translates CC4 and iClone materials into Blender’s Principled BSDF shader, preserving texture maps and visual fidelity. This includes support for PBR (physically based rendering) workflows, ensuring assets appear consistent across rendering engines like Eevee and Cycles. These upgrades reduce the time spent tweaking materials to achieve the intended look in Blender.

Support for Real-Time Rendering

The plugin enhances the real-time rendering experience in Blender, particularly for those utilizing the Eevee engine. By ensuring seamless material and rig compatibility, the update enables smoother iteration during the asset design and rendering process.

Pipeline Integration with iClone and Character Creator 4

For studios using iClone alongside CC4, the plugin streamlines the character creation-to-Blender pipeline. Reallusion notes that this tool is especially useful for artists working in VFX, game development, or previsualization, where asset iteration speed is crucial.

The Blender Auto Setup plugin, now rebranded, has its roots in Victor Soupday’s open-source CC/iC Blender Tools, first released in 2021. The plugin was designed to simplify the import of characters from Reallusion’s Character Creator and iClone into Blender. It also supports stock characters from Reallusion’s ActorCore library.

Open-Source and Free Availability

Reallusion’s Blender Auto Setup plugin is completely free to download from the Reallusion website and is also available on GitHub, encouraging community feedback and collaboration. For technical details, the full plugin source code is accessible, offering customizability for advanced users.

The post Free Update: Reallusion’s Blender Auto Setup Plugin Enhances CC4 Workflows first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.